Daniel Alegre is a man with plenty on his plate. As if being one of the most senior executives at internet powerhouse Google wasn’t enough to keep anyone busy, he’s in charge of the world’s fastest growing region, which has been engulfed in some of the company’s biggest controversies in the past couple of years.

As president of the Asia-Pacific and Japan region, he counts economies as diverse as Australia, India, Korea, Japan and China among his responsibilities.

In Australia last week to address an advertising industry conference he told The Australian Financial Review last year’s brinkmanship with the Chinese government over censored search results and hacked Gmail accounts had not dampened the company’s appetite for doing business in the country.

He also says Google had gone to great lengths to retain consumer trust after authorities, including the Australian Federal Police, were alerted to vehicles collecting private data as they compiled its street view photo archive.

“There is a general misconception across the globe that Google has left China, when the reality is that we never did."

Following a public stoush that gave rise to a global debate about the ethics of western companies aiding foreign government censorship, Google routed its Chinese searches to Hong Kong, to skirt the issue.

“I’d say it might be a little bit stronger in China than it is in other markets, but my colleagues around the world have the same issues. Every government in every market where we operate has certain quirks and requirements that will lead to discussions with Google.

“We are focused on the primacy of the consumer and ensuring that we are a trusted source of information. At the same time, we are very cognisant that even though we are a global company with a global mission, we also need to be locally relevant and locally respectful of laws."

Related Quotes

Company Profile

He says the Chinese search advertising market was a major revenue stream, but that growth in the display advertising and export advertising markets highlighted the importance of China to Google’s bottom line.

Export advertising is a growing area where users searching Google in Australia for Chinese goods will see advertising from relevant exporters alongside their results.

Alegre says last year’s street view snooping controversy was a concern, because internet companies relied on the trust of consumers, who were just a click away from using rival sites instead. “We were very open and straightforward about the incident as it related to Street View because we care about people trusting us. We need consumers that are willing to give us information about how they interact with the internet."

Google is banking on a continued trend towards online advertising in the Asia-Pacific region. Alegre says there was a growing gap between the level of digital advertising investment and the amount of time consumers spent on the internet.

He says that while about 36 per cent of media engagement was now online, only about 14 per cent to 15 per cent of advertising investment was directed towards the internet.

“That gap is getting bigger as the consumer interacts more and more with the digital world. Smartphone penetration is increasing, particularly here in Australia where it is even stronger than the US. We are still very much in the infant stage, in terms of the majority of advertisers leveraging a digital component of their advertising spend, but the consumer is already there."

He says Google was taking a relaxed view of international hype surrounding the launch of Apple’s latest iPad tablet in the US last week. A slew of tablets running on Google’s Android operating system will be released by various vendors this year.

“The media tends to portray it as Google versus Apple, but the reality is that what we really care about is higher digital usage and engagement. People still use Google on the iPhone and the iPad.

“We want there to be other options on mobile devices so that the power of open source will be available. The iPad will continue to be successful and they will continue to innovate, but we also have a number of OEM [original equipment manufacturers] partners that are very invested in the development of Android as a tablet, and we think it will be very successful."